Lit picks: recommended reading, Jan. 14

Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon and the Hunt for the Fugitive King of LSD

By Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis

(Twelve; 384 pages; $30)

Minutaglio and Davis revisit the wild saga of Timothy Leary’s prison escape in a rip-roaring tale of hallucinogenic drugs, revolutionary politics and an intercontinental standoff between a law-and-order president and the louche ex-professor.

Draft No. 4

On the Writing Process

By John McPhee

(Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 192 pages; $25)

McPhee’s detailed accounting of his methods, the witty sense of the writer’s life and the sincere encouragement he offers will surely encourage able writers to believe that they, too, might follow his precepts.

Halsey Street

By Naima Coster

(Little A; 336 pages; $24.95)

Coster’s consistently surprising first novel — about a young black artist who moves back home to a gentrifying Brooklyn to care for her failing father — is surprising in its stylistic assuredness, in its moral complexity and in its emotional power.